


In This Kingdom

by KelpietheThundergod



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s10e22 The Prisoner, Gen, Implied Castiel/Dean Winchester, M/M, Season/Series 10, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 20:23:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3950491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KelpietheThundergod/pseuds/KelpietheThundergod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His sword is gleaming in the light.</p><p>It's artificial, and it shouldn't be this cold. It shouldn't be cold, like the floor he's lying on is cold. Like the spaces between his fingers are cold, the grasp of his hands empty. The sword is stabbed through a book, stuck in it. He's still staring at its gleam, can't look away. It's pure and white inside, pristine. It's not what he wants. Not what he's wanted. From far away, he hears 'and we ripped up the ending', but this is a stab clear through the heart. He might still read it. He might know it. The weight and breath of all those stories, they'd all be there in the vastness of his mind. He doesn't care for them. The stories can and have been wrong. The words can be wrong.</p><p>Or maybe not the words. Maybe the world is wrong, turned upside down. His eyes burn and he closes them, just for a moment. Just for a moment. He didn't find the right ones to make Dean stay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In This Kingdom

 

 

 

 

_In this kingdom_

_I follow in your_

_shadow_

 

 

 

 

 

His sword is gleaming in the light.

It's artificial, and it shouldn't be this cold. It shouldn't be cold, like the floor he's lying on is cold. Like the spaces between his fingers are cold, the grasp of his hands empty. The sword is stabbed through a book, stuck in it. He's still staring at its gleam, can't look away. It's pure and white inside, pristine. It's not what he wants. Not what he's wanted. From far away, he hears _'and we ripped up the ending'_ , but this is a stab clear through the heart. He might still read it. He might know it. The weight and breath of all those stories, they'd all be there in the vastness of his mind. He doesn't care for them. The stories can and have been wrong. The words can be wrong.

Or maybe not the words. Maybe the world is wrong, turned upside down. His eyes burn and he closes them, just for a moment. Just for a moment. He didn't find the right ones to make Dean stay.

>

Back when he could dream, he dreamed of the desert.

Maybe once, maybe twice. Maybe every night. Dreams are that way, people might say. Like flying, only he couldn't control where he went. Down on the floor in one moment, up and away in the next. Some others were just dark. A few were sweet, and he'd awake with a restless longing. Empty hands.

The desert, it began after raising Dean from hell. In the beginning, he managed to deceive himself. In the beginning, he went for the quiet, for the stillness. The absence. He went there to seek revelation, away from the humans he liked to watch. And when he was there, he wouldn't listen to it. Would listen, instead, inside himself. Stare at the dunes, and the empty sky, and in the silence of his mind he asked himself questions he couldn't answer.

He flew to the desert to remind and distance himself, and then he'd think about those sands, and the kingdoms that have risen and fallen with it. Buried ruins under dust and stone. He'd go there to listen to heaven, heaven and its white halls and perfect order. And he'd think about those sands, and the temptation of the serpent.

The longer he stayed with Dean, the lonelier he began to feel whenever he was there.

>

Just for a moment, and behind his eyes, he gets a second chance.

Is standing behind Dean, unharmed. A hand on his shoulder. Dean's shirt is without blood, but he's standing too still. Not moving at all, barely even breathing. Like a pillar of salt, but this analogy is wrong, is unfair. Dean shouldn't be punished for this. Not for turning back. Not for turning into something he's never wanted to be, begged them not to be again. He has been punished enough.

Castiel has his hand on Dean's shoulder, the left one, but he can't turn him around to look at him. Won't do it, won't hurt Dean further. But he can't take another step either, he doesn't know –

“Please, Dean,” he whispers, because his voice is breaking. He runs his hand down Dean's back, slowly, gently. Right over his spine. He can feel the bones quiver under his touch, and yet they are as turned to stone. It breaks something inside of him. “Tell me what the right ones are,” and he is pleading, “tell me, please.” Dean's back is cold, the fabric of his shirt threadbare and faded. He is so strong, and yet so breakable. Guilt is closing up Castiel's throat.

The gleam of the sun, and the wind picks up and a river of grains trickles down the dark side of a dune. And over. His hands are empty again. He hates, with a sudden vehemence that makes his eyesight blur, that no one answers back.

>

Once, driven by doubt and uncertainty, he left the dunes behind and walked on the edge of the salt lakes for days.

The heat made the air blurry and liquid, but he liked the twisted reflection of the sky on the shallow waters. He stared out into the white emptiness and thought it would hurt his eyes if he were human. Thought how he was not allowed to think that, and thought it all the same. He was changing, and he felt like there was fear. But he still wasn't listening. _'Castiel. Castiel, where are you treading. Castiel. We need orders, Castiel. Castiel.'_

He stared into the heat, let it trick his human eyes. Let his eyes see the world the way the humans saw it. Just for a moment. Just for –

_'Cas.'_

The voice was tinny, and quiet, in comparison. But it got louder, and easier to distinguish every time. Not because it grew more insistent, but because the belief was building. Sometimes it had a warmth that no other voice had ever had. That nothing had ever made him feel. It build Castiel up inside. He left the desert behind.

>

His eyes open and he looks away.

The blood has dried, the wounds are closed, and yet he's hurting. Somewhere, inside. Dean would know, Dean would explain to him. His stare had been blank, devoid of warmth and feeling. Maybe Dean is feeling like this inside, in so much pain it's buried him alive. The thought is agony, and yet it helps in pushing himself to standing. He yanks his sword free, leaves the book behind.

He hesitates. The doorway is empty and jarring.

He shoves his sword away, flexes his fingers. The spaces between them are cold, and he could will them to be warm. Could hold them into the sunlight, and just wait until it's time. It's not what he wants. Maybe here, he has answered when he should have asked.

 _'I'm here,'_ he's said in the desert. Where there was no one to hear. _'Cas'_. And then he'd left it behind. The shallow waters, and the sea miles and miles away. _'Cas.'_ Michael's sword, and the utter merciless light of the sun. To go where –

He walks past the destruction, past the walls and stones, through the doorway. Up the stairs, through the dark, following Dean's steps. This is strong, and breakable. But not broken. And he is not gonna let it fall.

 

 

 

 


End file.
